Atlanta likely for College Football Hall of Fame

[HMFFL]

The National Football Foundation, which three years ago decided to move its College Football Hall of Fame to Atlanta, received reassurance this week that the long-delayed attraction will be built here.

“I think it’s fair to say that all systems are go,” Steve Hatchell, National Football Foundation president and CEO, said.

Hatchell offered that assessment in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution after the NFF board, at a meeting Wednesday in Dallas, heard an update from the Atlanta group spearheading the Hall of Fame project.

“We were happy with what we heard,” Hatchell said. “… We’ve been after this since 2009 and our guys were very anxious to be able to say, ‘Things are really going to happen.’ And that was the report we got.”

John Stephenson, interim CEO of Atlanta Hall Management, the non-profit entity formed to build and manage the downtown football shrine, reported to the NFF board that enough sponsorship and loan commitments have been secured to proceed with construction.

Recent votes by the Georgia World Congress Center Authority board and Georgia’s State Properties Commission have cleared the way for construction to begin on GWCCA/state property near Centennial Olympic Park, Stephenson told NFF board members.

“They’ve been waiting very patiently to hear the news we got to deliver to them … that the project is green-lighted,” Stephenson said.

He reported to the NFF board that Atlanta Hall Management has signed contracts for $51.5 million in sponsorships — $43 million of it to be collected before the facility opens — and has lined up $22.5 million in bank loans. AHM hasn’t named the sponsors publicly, saying companies want to announce on their own timetables. http://blogs.ajc.com/atlanta-georgia-sp ... n-atlanta/